Suicide bombing kills 5 in northwestern Pakistan

A Pakistani woman mourns the killing of her brother at the site of the suicide bomb attack in Peshawar on November 7, 2012.

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Three police officials, one of them senior, are killed in the blast

The attack wounds 31 people, a police officer on the scene says

Peshawar, where the attack took place, is a gateway to Pakistan's restive tribal region

A suicide bomber killed himself and five other people, including a senior police official, in an attack in the center of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, a police officer at the scene said.

Three police officials and two civilians were killed in the explosion, said Imran Shahid, the police officer. Thirty-one people were wounded, he added.

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the gateway to Pakistan's tribal region, which is largely ungoverned and has a strong militant presence.

For more than a decade, Peshawar has been on the front line for the Pakistani government's fight with militant groups such as the Taliban. A major terrorist attack near the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar in April 2010 killed at least 25 people.